This invention relates to gaming tables and particularly to gaming tables for playing air hockey. More specifically, this invention relates to a novel scoring hood for air hockey tables.
Air hockey tables have become a popular entertainment game with apparatuses for playing the game ranging from large, robust, coin operated tables for arcades to compact, movable tables for home use. Some tables include decorative add-ons to simulate live hockey rinks and some include sophisticated mechanisms for automatic scoring and feeding of the puck onto the playing area.
Amid the large variety of designs for air hockey tables all retain the common features of a large open playing area of roughly rectangular shape bounded by retaining walls comprising raised edges to retain the puck on the playing area and to allow for the puck to ricochet off the walls. Another common feature of current air hockey tables is the basic construction of the goal opening. The most common configuration is a gap in the retaining wall of the playing area with the goal opening defined by the playing area surface on the bottom, the raised edges of the retaining wall on the sides and a low clearance hood across the top designed to allow the puck to slide off the playing area underneath the top and between the edges of the retaining wall.
A common difficulty with this standard scoring hood configuration is that missed shots on goal ricochet directly back into the playing area. This often results in retention of control of the puck by the player who took the shot. This result is not analogous to live hockey play where missed shots on goal often result in a change in control of the puck or at least an even scramble between opponents to gain control of the puck.
One alternative goal opening configuration is to place a hole in the playing area surface, spaced out from the retaining wall proportionately to the spacing of goals on a live hockey rink, and covering the hole with a scoring hood with a rectangular or pill shaped foot print. Such a scoring hood includes a top with supporting edges on three sides and defines a goal opening facing the center of the playing area, sized to allow a puck to slide under the top and into the hole in the playing area. Such an alternative design is meant to better simulate the play action of live hockey.
Though this scoring hood configuration closely approximates the appearance of a live hockey rink, the configuration creates a relatively dead space behind the goal, which unlike live hockey, is controllable and accessible by only one player.
The present invention provides a new configuration for a scoring hood that alleviates the problem of direct ricochet of missed shots on goal, but without producing dead spaces on the playing area. The scoring hood of the present invention results in a more lively and even play action.